


Astronaut Ice Cream — After Our Training Sessions Among the Stars

by thatsrightdollface



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: (I wrote this a while ago as part of a challenge for myself — more details in the notes!), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Space, Established Relationship, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Gofer Project AU, Happy Birthday Kaito!!!, M/M, astronaut ice cream, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23617015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: Kokichi Oma and the rest of the Ultimates chosen for the Gofer Project celebrate Kaito Momota’s birthday in space.  They even freeze-dried him some astronaut ice cream!
Relationships: Harukawa Maki/Momota Kaito, Momota Kaito & Oma Kokichi, Momota Kaito & Saihara Shuichi, Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 60





	Astronaut Ice Cream — After Our Training Sessions Among the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo, I invented a game/challenge for myself where I connected astronaut ice cream to three (very different) characters I like, all of which happen to be excited about space!!! :D The stories are disconnected. Only the strange chalky ice cream unites us. (And the fact that I’m posting all of ‘em on Kaito Momota from Danganronpa’s birthday. Also the anniversary of the first shuttle launch. Happy birthday, Kaito! Happy anniversary of the first shuttle launch, everybody else! Also Easter, if you celebrate Easter!)
> 
> I hope you enjoy this story, if you read it~ I'm sorry for anything and everything I might've gotten wrong. (I got some of my astronaut ice cream facts from a Mental Floss article, as a note!)
> 
> I hope you're staying safe, and having a wonderful day!

The longer Kokichi Oma and his friends hurtled through space in their cozy schoolyard ark... under a perfect blue artificial sky, strolling through the garden that contained literally all remaining earthly plant life... the more he doubted the Gofer Project was gonna accomplish all it was supposed to in their measly lifetimes. 

You know the deal: Earth was gonna get blown up by fifty gazillion meteors because they’d ticked off the space gods or something, so fancy people who thought they could assign value to various human lives for some inane reason decided to send sixteen talented high schoolers hurtling past the atmosphere. Go on, okay, kids? Go on and find a new planet for humanity, while the rest of us burn behind you, like you’re running out into the street just before the house caves in. Go on and live. 

Kokichi and the rest of his friends... (the rest of his friends that had been chosen for the program, of course)... _were_ living. Got that part right. Gold star. But he was beginning to think that no matter how far they traveled, discovering spooky ice moons with leviathans curling thousands of miles under the surface and/or mapping out galaxies inconceivably far from Earth, they were never gonna find a planet that met everybody’s requirements. Somewhere full of places to explore, hospitable enough to support human society and yet also currently unoccupied by alien life that had dibs on the land. Y’know: the dream. 

It was tricky. This might come as a shock, Gofer Project Planning Crew, but space was super ridiculously big and full of surprises. Kokichi had gotten in an argument with actual sentient light, by now. His boyfriend Shuichi Saihara had solved an ancient mystery that’d kept a couple warring alien kingdoms squabbling for generations and brought peace to a whole planet made up mostly of burbling, molten gold. Or maybe not! Maybe that was a lie. Maybe they’d just been flying around aimlessly for ages now, mourning their exploded home planet, missing all the friends and/or beloved clown gang members the Gofer Project coordinators hadn’t deemed worthy of life. 

For the record, Kokichi hadn’t even wanted to come here. He was the Ultimate Supreme Leader, wasn’t he? A good leader stuck with his gang of troublemakers ‘til the end. The captain went down with the ship. Kokichi was supposed to be there to comfort his gang, D.I.C.E., as the planet went under. He was supposed to still be trying to make ‘em laugh until he could barely speak. But nope. He was here. He’d tried to run — _all_ Kokichi’s friends had wiped their memories and tried to run! — but the Gofer Project found them anyway. 

Shit. And they probably weren’t even gonna find a good planet before they died, and whatever kids they had took the search over for them. If they had any kids. Wasn’t that a weird thought? _Kokichi_ thought it was a weird thought. Sure it had been years, but imagine handing the legacy of an exploded planet over to a bunch of unassuming innocents and telling them the survival of an entire world rested on their helpless tiny shoulders. Kokichi wasn’t entirely convinced anybody should do something like that, but hey, what did he know? He might’ve even been lying when he said that sort of thing, or so everybody else on their ark seemed to think. 

Kokichi wanted humanity to live on, yeah. But he also wanted to be fair. He told Shuichi about it, sometimes, late at night. Shuichi had been the Ultimate Detective, before the planet bit the dust and all their mysteries became Space Mysteries. He listened so carefully, when people spoke to him, and he took Kokichi far more seriously than he was rightfully used to. 

Shuichi held Kokichi while they read together in the dusty space station library, sometimes. He folded his arms around Kokichi’s middle, and Kokichi held the book up and turned the pages for both of them. Sometimes he teased Shuichi by flipping those pages backwards. Other times, he marked their place with his thumb and leaned his head back against Shuichi’s shoulder to talk. He told lies. Sure, there were always the lies. But Shuichi knew Kokichi almost as well as D.I.C.E. used to, by now. It was weird for Kokichi to have a dream without Shuichi’s steady grey-gold eyes in it. When he’d panicked after almost getting lost out in the depths of space when his connection strap broke doing repairs on their ark, picturing Shuichi’s soft smile... and knowing he had to get back home to Shuichi, whatever else he’d lost... had really, truly kept Kokichi Oma together. 

Kokichi wasn’t the Ultimate Supreme Leader of anything, anymore, even if he supposedly had the innate skills for it. But he _was_ Shuichi’s boyfriend, officially. Shuichi had admitted it in front of everyone, no take-backs. And they were all his friends, these gathered weirdos on the ark. This unusually school-like space station was Kokichi’s planet, now. For all he knew, they were gonna be here forever. And because they’d been here a considerable chunk of their _forever_ already, everybody had fallen into their little routines. 

Korekiyo Shinguji the Ultimate Anthropologist had taken to compiling tomes of alien folktales and cultural notes as they traveled, for example, writing long analyses comparing them to human historical practices that it was unlikely anyone beyond Shuichi actually read. Tsumugi Shirogane the Ultimate Cosplayer often had everybody join her for marathons of her favorite anime from back on Earth, and she got them all to join in on Cosplay Days more often than Kokichi would’ve gambled on. (He really liked some of the costumes Tsumugi made for him, actually, and still dressed up in stuff like the domino mask and snappy jester hat on non-Cosplay Days, every now and then.)

Another ritual Kokichi sometimes found himself taking part in involved Shuichi’s best friend (besides Kokichi himself, of course. Naturally.) Most days, at some point, Kaito Momota... the former Ultimate Astronaut, which seemed like a pretty funny title now that they were _all_ professional unwilling astronauts... recruited as many people as would join him for some training time. What they were training for exactly, Kokichi couldn’t tell ya, considering it’s not like there was an astronaut initiation Kaito had to pass anymore. Maybe he just wanted to give people a chance to burn off steam as a group, or maybe he was afraid they might get boarded by alien pirates someday. Gotta be in shape, for something like that. Training time meant health nut exercise time, which in turn meant Kokichi occasionally found himself drinking soda from the sidelines and calling out useful things like “Lift from the knees!” and “Kaito’s cheating at jumping jacks, everybody! Sic ‘em!”

Kokichi was gonna participate properly in Kaito’s Enthusiastic Exercise Time today, though, because it was the Ultimate Astronaut’s birthday. Here’s to another year imagining they were orbiting around a sun they’d left behind long ago. Congratulations, Luminary of the Stars! Miu Iruma, the Ultimate Inventor, had freeze-dried Kaito a kinda funny birthday present this time around, too. Astronaut ice cream, like they used to sell in gift shops on Earth. The ice cream was as much of a lie as their artificial sunshine here on the ark, though, of course, given that Kokichi had heard the sugary chalk slabs were never actually eaten by astronauts back in the early days of space travel... but eh. They were a fun lie. And Kaito’s girlfriend Maki Harukawa (Ultimate Assassin, but don’t worry, she‘d only killed a _few_ powerful alien leaders by now) had actually requested Miu make the ice cream all special for him. 

“Kaito used to eat ‘astronaut ice cream’ with his grandparents, when he was still dreaming of coming to space,” Maki had said, keeping her voice very level. That was par for the course for Maki, though Kokichi noticed a ton of tenderness in her eyes. In the twitch of her lip. “It was difficult for the Ultimate Astronaut to turn his back on those dreams, denying the Gofer Project. Trying to run. I want to remind Kaito of happier times.”

Bet you’re wondering what _Kokichi_ got Kaito for his birthday, right? Well. He got him his charming presence at the Enthusiastic Exercise Time, remember? And also a little stunt spacecraft he’d designed for Kaito’s piloting practice/gotten Miu to help him put together. So that gift was from Kokichi _and_ Miu... and sort of Gonta Gokuhara, the Ultimate Entomologist, who had suggested the whole thing look like a neat alien bug he’d found. (Kokichi still didn’t like bugs, mind you, but they were way more tolerable in spaceship form.)

Kaito’s birthday was one of the only days a year when the whole arc gathered in the garden with him to willingly do sit-ups for an untold (but probably long enough to fit a good bonding session in) chunk of time. Kaito himself had his arm thrown around Shuichi’s shoulders when Kokichi made it to the training grounds, and they were laughing together about an away-mission adventure that had gone horrible awry. Kokichi snickered, and started stretching out his shoulders. He remembered that away-mission. How could he ever forget?

“Okay, everybody!” Kaito called, gathering his friends all around him. Striking a dramatic pose, worthy of the Ultimate Astronaut. Luminary of the Stars. Accomplice to the Nebulas. “You know how this goes: I’m gonna open up the sky now, and then we’ll get going. Just hold tight!”

This was one of the things Kokichi actually understood, about Kaito’s training sessions: he always peeled the artificial sky away to do them, and ran around for a bit right beside the endless universe, under the light of a hundred thousand unnamed suns. The blue earthly sky was a lie just like astronaut ice cream, but there was a time to wrap the lie around yourself and a time to stare your truth in the enormous cosmic-y space-like face. And, anyway, Kokichi didn’t think the Ultimate Astronaut would ever get tired of seeing the stars. After Kokichi had tried to name his third discovered solar system after Shuichi Saihara — and Kaito had cheerfully agreed and added it to the map! — that much was painfully clear. Shuichi Saihara I, Shuichi Saihara II and Shuichi Saihara III. Maybe the ark would reach them all, someday!

Kokichi slid over next to the actual Shuichi Saihara, as Kaito tapped in a code to open up their sky. He slipped his hand into the Ultimate Detective’s, before his palms got all sweaty or anything like that. Shuichi squeezed Kokichi’s fingers gently, without glancing over, and whispered, “You tried some of the astronaut ice cream already, didn’t you? Miu says there was a little missing.” 

“Nope. Wasn’t me,” Kokichi said. And then, “I helped her freeze-dry the stuff. And I was curious!”

All sixteen of them stood together, then, as the sky crackled and dissolved away. An eternity of void stared down at them from all around, full of journeys even now. Full of stories to stumble across and mistakes yet to make. Years to live, whatever exactly a “year” meant this far from the sun. “What’d it taste like?” Shuichi asked. The astronaut ice cream. There was starlight in Shuichi’s eyes. Starlight glinting in the blue undertones of his dark hair. 

“It tastes a little like I thought colorful erasers would when I was a kid,” Kokichi offered. “Melts in your mouth, though. Six-and-a-half out of ten, would steal from Miu again. We’ll have more after the training. Gonna try to stick some candles in it.”

“Mmm, good notes,” Shuichi said. "I don't think that will actually work, with the candles." He bent over to kiss the edge of Kokichi’s mouth. Kokichi hoped his lips still tasted astronaut ice cream-sweet, but maybe that was a little mushy of him, huh?

Then, it was time to go through the increasingly intense exercise regimen Kaito and Maki had been developing together, wasn’t it? Shuichi did this with them pretty much every day, Kokichi knew. Maybe it was sort of nice, moving in sync with the whole entire rest of his planet. His new gang, lost in the dark as they may be. Kaito deserved at least this much on his birthday, even if it was kinda funny that Kokichi could still get grass stains and bug bites in space. 

Go figure. 


End file.
